


Slip Away

by The_Leafy_Sea_Dragon



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Baltimore, Kidnapping, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, POV Second Person, Songfic, Title from a Mumford & Sons Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Leafy_Sea_Dragon/pseuds/The_Leafy_Sea_Dragon
Summary: This is Neil's kidnapping/the Baltimore scene as seen through Andrew's eyes.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	Slip Away

**Author's Note:**

> About a year ago Mumford and Sons released a new album, and the first time I heard "Slip away" I thought about Andrew and Neil, and this scene specifically. I wanted to do something with it, I just didn't know what. And then this happened.
> 
> I've tried to include as much as I could from Nora's extra content, and the few pieces of dialogue I've included, once they've arrived in Baltimore, is straight from the book (for obvious reasons) and all credit goes to the amazing Nora. I've also tried to stay as true to canon as possible, but I might have slipped...
> 
> I'm sorry about the 2nd person POV, I don't love reading it myself, but it was fun to write. *shrugs*
> 
> Rated M for cannon typical swearing and violence. Could probably be a T though, but just in case...
> 
> Oh, and I have no beta so any typos or mistakes are all mine (anyone keen on teaming up as betas, let me know)

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_No more questions no more lies_

_Do and deal for no surprises_

_Cause you will never slip away_

_Slip away in the night_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

He lied to you. You knew he was a liar, but you had a deal, a new deal: You would let him stand his ground, fight his own battles, but he would not run away. And now, he is gone. Did he run?

_Thank you. You were amazing._

You should have heard the good-bye in those words. Seen it in his eyes.

_Thank you. You were amazing._

You should have known when he asked for a new deal, when he asked you to let him go. There’s a tightness in your chest, unfamiliar and undefined. It twists and churns as you think about him planning to run, deciding to leave you behind. But why should you care—he is nothing.

No, fuck this. You will find him, if only so that you can kill him yourself.

_Thank you. You were amazing._

The words echo in your head as you run back towards the stadium, leaving Kevin with the team. You will find him. You will tear down the stadium if you have to, shred it to pieces. Bench by bench, bolt by bolt. Because what if he didn’t run? Nothing adds up, you have to find him.

Frantically you shove people out of your way. Someone’s elbow hits you in the face, narrowly missing your eye. You push on, there’s no time to fight. The sense of urgency only intensifies the further away you get from the bus. You can almost feel him there, just out of your reach.

And then, there it is. Right in front of you. As soon as you see it you know because he would never leave this behind. There on the ground is Neil’s duffle, battered from being stepped on and kicked around by trampling feet. You kneel down beside it, letting your knees hit the ground hard, welcoming the pain. It calms you, grounds you, helps you to focus.

All of his things are still in side. You rummage through the bag and find his phone. A message with a single number stares back at you. ”0”. And now you’re sure: He didn’t run. Someone took him.

_ You. Were. Amazing. Amazing. You were. Amazing. Youwereamazing._

He’d received a call after the game, too and you call the unfamiliar numbers on his phone, both disconnected. You know better, but you call the hospitals anyway. But of course he isn’t there. You call them again. Wymack’s face tells you he knows too, _Neil is gone_. Kevin’s tells you he knows _something_, but before you can ask a phone rings. For a split second you think it’s Neil’s and you look at the phone clutched in your hand, but of course it isn’t.

Wymack answers. You only hear a few disjointed words, words that don’t make any sense:_ FBI. Baltimore. Hospital. _And then:_ alive. _He’s alive. But alive can mean so many things: Not dead _yet_. Comatose. Mutilated. Broken. It doesn’t necessarily mean_ not damaged beyond repair_, you should know.

_FBI. Baltimore. FBI. FBI?_

One look at Kevin’s white face is all it takes and then your hands are around his neck, squeezing.

”What the fuck have you been keeping from me, Kevin Day?” Kevin makes a pathetic noise, fingers clawing at your hands, but you will squeeze the truth out of him. Your head is buzzing and you're vaguely aware of someone’s hands trying to pry you off of him, but you won’t let go. Not until you have the truth.

”Tell me.” Your voice is quiet, deadly. There is so much anger inside of you, bubbling like black tar through your veins, but you don’t want to look at it too closely, you’re not ready to face the reasons of that anger. You squeeze harder. Everything goes black, all sound disappear. Your world has been reduced to fingers crushing flesh and those fucking words pumping through your mind over and over again, like a curse. 

_ Thank you. You were amazing._

Suddenly your hands are no longer around Kevin’s neck, and the world is coming back to you in the shape of the other Foxes, sound slowly slipping back in to your consciousness. They’re screaming your name, trying to hold you back. Their touch makes your skin crawl, but you find your voice again.

”Fucking tell me Kevin.” This time you yell.

Kevin finally breaks and the story of Nathaniel Wesninski spills out of him. He tells you about The Butcher of Baltimore and his son. About how that son was supposed to belong to the Moriyamas, how he was supposed to be Riko’s pet. About how Neil, or Nathaniel, had planned on doing something worse than running, he’d planned to die. He knew his days were numbered,but the ”0” had come earlier than he’d expected, Kevin didn’t know more than that.

You’re the only one who isn’t surprised. You don’t know him, but yet you do. He’s a liar butnot a lie, you can read him like an open book. Almost as easily as he can read you. 

_ Thank you. You were amazing._

Coach has started to drive the bus towards Baltimore, and Neil. Nathaniel? Abram? As soon as Kevin finishes talking you can no longer stand to be around the others. You can’t listen to their outrage and betrayal, you barely have room for your own. Instead you go to the back of the bus and rest your head against the window. You’re too agitated to sleep, so you close your eyes and tryto piece the puzzle of Neil Josten together while the night passes by outside.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_Waiting patient for the sun to rise_

_In reveals a stoic smile_

_But you will never slip away_

_Slip away in the night_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

You sit in a fucking hotel room with the Feds. They’re throwing questions at you that you refuse to answer. They don’t answer any of yours—_Where the fuck do you keep him? When the fuck can I see him?_

The Foxes are quiet and pathetic, sporting bruises from the riot. Kevin is sitting as far away from you as he can, clutching at his bruised throat. Good. Stay away.

You’re beginning to climb the walls. You want to get your knives out, burn the hotel down. Instead you start walking around the room, picking random things up, getting in everyone’s way. Who the fuck do these Fedsthink they are telling you to calm down? You’re gonna put that Kurt’s fucking head through the fucking wall. Coach tries to talk you down, distract you with whiskey. It doesn’t really work, but you sit down and take a swig anyway.

Waiting waiting waiting. It’s excruciating. You are on your last tether. If it snaps, so will you. You can feel it fraying at the ends, and you’d welcome the promise of the violence that would follow if it didn’t mean they’d take you away before you could see him.

Fuck this, you’re going out to look for him. If they won’t tell you where he is you’ll work it out on your own. Someone tries to stop you from leaving, it’s that fucking Kurt again. The tether finally snaps and you take a swing at him, but Coach grabs you and pulls you back before your fist makes contact.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_You find me waiting here for you_

_Come and suffer here_

_You find me holding my breath for you_

_Come and suffer here_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

They cuffed you to Coach. Neil is here and you’re not because they cuffed you to Coach and he had to move the bus. You are going to kill every single one of them, every single person who gets between you and him. All dead. He’s the only one that matters.

At the door they won’t let you in, so you shove them, slam them up against the wall and push past. Coach in tow. That fucking Kurt tries to grab you but Coach got in his way, for his or your sake? Irrelevant.

And then, you see him and that twisting feeling in your chest eases just a little. He is throwing himself at a suit who tries to pull a gun on you. Neil doubles over in pain, and then you finally reach him and somewhere inside of you something snaps. Or falls into place. Your hand on his neck is reassuring, it tells you he’s here, real. Alive.

You push him down to his knees and follow. You need to have a look at him. Make sure it’s really him under all those bandages. What have they done to him? How could he let this happen to himself? _Don't come crying to me when someone breaks your face._ Now someone has.

You lift his face to yours and tug down his hood. Methodically you start to remove his bandages, inventorying his wounds.

When you pull the tape off to reveal his burns you can see pain flashing in his eyes, pain you caused. After that you try to be more careful. You need to kill whoever did this to him. You need to kill him for getting himself into this.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_In the violence of a mind's eye_

_We had a deal for no surprises_

_Cause you will never slip away_

_Slip away in the night_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

”I’m sorry.”

Furious you pull your fist back, fingers clenching. How dare he sit there with his mauled face and body and affect you like this? Thinking that an apology will fix anything? He had decided to die, and he didn’t tell you. Whether his father’s people had gotten a hold of him or not, come May, he’d already decided to give up and die. You should kill him. But.

Your arm is shaking with the effort not to punch the ever living fuck out of Neil. Abram. Nathaniel. You release a breath, force the air slowly out between your teeth, and carefully lower your arm.

”Say it again and I will kill you.”

That woke the Feds up, and they’re back to empty threats and posturing. You’re going to kill that fucking suit. _Somebody_ needs to die. You start moving, but Neil’s hands come up to frame your face, to keep you in place. And he says something that shuts them up. At least that part of him was real. You tell him so.

”So, the attitude problem wasn’t an act, at least.”

”I was going to tell you,” he says. You’re so sick of his lies and half-truths.

”Stop lying to me.”

”I’m not lying.” And he starts telling you about his father’s people waiting for him in the locker room last night, about keeping quiet to protect you, about the riot they’d staged. And it makes sense, it fits in the puzzle you’re piecing together. But you’ve told him before not to protect you and he tried anyway. At Christmas, and now yet again, and he’s the worse for it. You hate him, hate what he does to you, what he makes you feel.

”Am I at ninety-four yet?”

”You are at one hundred. What happened to your face?”

”A dashboard lighter.” You’re reminded of the presence of the rest of the team by their reactions when Neil turns to face them, you’d almost forgotten they were there. But now they’re here and trying to interfere with your time with Neil. You’re not done yet, not ready to let the others have their turn but Abby still comes over.

”Get away from us.” But she doesn’t, she wants to see him, help him. She doesn’t understand. The last scrap of your self-control is slipping. ”If you make me repeat myself you will not live to regret it.”

Neil tugs at your hair carefully and brings your focus back to him. Somehow he makes Abby back off and you are left alone again. Neil continues talking, his father is dead. A father who has hurt and hunted him his entire life, dead. Shot by his mobster uncle. Neil presses his fingers to your chest, showing where the bullets went.

”I can’t believe it was that easy.” His expression is almost disbelieving.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_But you're not yourself_

_I know you better than you_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

This is Nathaniel. Abram. Neil. No, it’s not. Yes, it is. You slowly hook your fingers under his chin to lift his face to yours. Neil. The unrepentant, pathological liar. A liar, not a lie, you remind yourself.

You look at this broken figure before you, with a twinge of—not guilt exactly—but something.While you were uselessly running around the stadium someone took a cigaret lighter to his face. While you were wasting time talking to every hospital in the area someone took a knife to his hands, burned his arms. Someone took a cleaver to his throat and you weren’t there to stop them. To stand in their way. You should have been there, but no, you let him go. You going back on your deal almost killed him.

No, he brought this on himself. This is not on you, but that feeling in your stomach tells you differently. You’re never leaving his side again.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_You find me holding my breath for you_

_It's never more than I can take_

_I wouldn't have it any other way_

_You find me on my knees for you_

_It's never more than I can take_

_I wouldn't have it any other way_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

”Andrew, they want to take me away from here.”

Take him away? No. You can’t have that, won’t have that. The look in his eyes is desperate, pleading. He tells you to tell him to leave, and he would. You hate him, hate that he even asks if you want him to go. Hate that you don’t want him to, hate that you even care.

”You aren’t going anywhere.”

It was time to involve the rest of the Foxes, they wouldn’t want to let him go either. So you speak up, make sure they hear you. ”You’re staying with us. If they try to take you away they will lose.” They Foxes instantly laid claim on Neil, arguing with the Feds. But the first one who actually asked what Neil wanted was Coach. Neil wanted to stay, of course he did. You knew this, but hearing him say it feels like relief.

You tug at his hoodie again, ”Get rid of them before I kill them.” He knows you are serious, you know he can tell that you’re a hairsbreadth away from losing control, that you have been all night. But he can’t get rid of them, he needs to give them answers before he can come back home with you.

”Do you want to be there for it? It’s the story I should have given you months ago.”

You have to go with them, you don’t trust the suits to give him back. You’re not even sure you trust Neil to come back. And as soon as you stepped though that door, seeing him across the room, you realised that for you there’s no going back. This might actually be a ”this”. That unidentified feeling in your chest that had been building since the riot had been fear, fear of having lost what you’d never been able to replace.

”I have to go, I don’t trust them to give you back.”

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_But you're not yourself_

_I know you better than you_

_And you're not yourself_

_I know you better than you_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

”Can I really be Neil again?”

”I told Neil to stay. Leave Nathaniel buried in Baltimore with his father.”

You watch him carefully as he’s looking out the window and then down at his burned and bandaged hands, tracing something in his palm. You’ve seen him do this before. The key, you remind yourself, the key you gave him. ”Neil Abram Josten” he murmurs, and the sound stirrs something inside you. _Neil Abram Josten._

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_Don't you lie down, be still in love_

_Don't you leave now, be still in love_

_Don't you leave now, be still_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

You spend hours listening to Neil telling his story. Listening to Neil stubbornly refuse the FBI’s witness protection program. The truth of Neil’s background doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t matter what they call him, who he pretended to be—you started peeling away those layer ages ago and you know the person underneath. You’ve seen his scars. Kissed his lips. 

Finally he signs the papers, officially making him Neil Josten and you’re allowed to leave.

He’ll come back home with you, and he will stay. He isn’tgoing anywhere, and neither are you.

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_

_Don't you lie down, be still in love_

_Don't you leave now, be still in love_

_Don't you leave now, be still_

_…………………………………………………………………………………………………………_


End file.
